And it's exactly that kind of trickery that led to the huge dog food recalls. Melamine boosts the levels of protein that show up in tests, and apparently it's been common practice in China to add melamine to glutens, which go in all kinds of animal feeds, including dog food. One manufacturer got a bit greedy and decided to add more melamine and less actual gluten, knowing full well that the product would still test for high protein levels. They send it to US dog food manufacturers who outsource those kinds of ingredients because of the higher profit margin. It got added to dog food and cat food - and created a tragedy. One article that I read about the melamine said that melamine was like 1/100th the cost of gluten and IMO that cost savings made those manufacturer's look the other way when they knew damn well what they were really getting.

While I know the chinese manufacturers, as well as the US manufacturers who imported the tainted ingredients, all got charged - the US folks only got charged with importing ingredients that were not accurately labeled. Pfffffftttt. I would caution all animal owners to check the labels on everything they give their dogs, from food to treats. All food products must list the country of origin on their labels - and I've found that some supposedly healthy treats are made in China. Now I don't have anything against China, but they do seem to have some very strange things happen with their food - human hair in baby formula, melamine in baby formula, and something weird with their toothpaste (that I can't quite remember right now) among other things. They seem to have a problem with their product safety standards in general and I make sure to check labels now before I buy something that I or my dogs will ingest.